Steve is a sales and marketing guru who specialises in training SMEs and company managers. His session will outline tools and tips for company owners, software managers and senior developers to increase their effectiveness at winning new business.

Using SQL Server Business Intelligence Development Studio to create the package and manage errors

Using SQL Server Management Studio to create the Integration Service

Using SQL Agent job to schedule it

Gotchas (including UNC mapping, and the VFP OLE DB driver)

Brief overview of a real world implementation using SSIS

Brief discussion of SSIS versus VFP Upsizing Wizard

The article is 49 pages long, but don’t be alarmed, most of it is screen shots. It is available in Word or PDF format. I’ve included the Word format in case you want to edit the article, add your own comments, copy stuff out etc.

Not wanting to pick on anyone in particular, but I’ve heard the expression “it’s not rocket science” all week at TechEd, usually in the context of how easy it is now (as compared to previous versions of products) to build wonderful, enabling, awe-inspiring solutions to enterprise problems.

I have to admit I wasn’t exactly sure what rocket science was, but thankfully Wikipedia came to the clarification party yet again:

Whilst the tools are certainly getting better, I have to say that enterprise development is getting more and more like rocket science, with a complete range of specialists required on most large developments these days…

I’ve held off talking about the TechEd keynote from Wednesday (because it was extremely disappointing), but thankfully the locknote was slightly (but only slightly) better.

It was good because it was a chance for us developers to say goodbye to Frank Arrigo (he’s heading over to Redmond). Frank has had an amazing impact on the developer community (and to a small extent the IT Pro community) in Australia. He is much loved, and we’ll miss him.

Apart from that we were dragged through a mildly interesting insight into the AFP (which really only served to confirm my thoughts from the earlier Computer Forensics session).

I popped into the end of a session delivered by some of the AFP (Australian Federal Police) Computer Forensic experts. The surprising discovery for me was how under-resourced they are. Sure, they know how to recover data ‘deleted’ from a hard drive, and they also get pretty good at finding incriminating stuff, but overall my impression was that these guys rely on a lot of luck.

Quickly banishing visions of NCIS-like teams that were the uber-crime-sleuth I’d wanted to be when I was younger, these guys are just hard working blokes (no women apparently) who often get called into really disgusting crime scenes (drug user’s premises with discarded syringes etc), and can find themselves at the end of their 24 hour search warrant with nothing to show for it.

I had hoped I would come out really scared about how powerful and technologically innovative this crack team were – but no, they are just coping (like computer crime agencies world wide no doubt).

Why Computer Forensics?Answer: Because it is better than nothing at all…Note: The AFP is looking for more recruits – they are in dire need.

More out of interest than any compelling business need I dropped into Neil Roodyn’s session on Vista Gadgets.

And I have to say I found it quite thought provoking. Neil went through some simple examples but most importantly stressed some of the design considerations to be employed. Designing for Offline (or worse, unexpected disconnection scenarios) from the outset is the most important of course, but then issues of having initial data in the install were covered.

Yes, the customization ‘features’ of SharePoint have been well criticised for a while, so it is good to see that branding and formatting is now a simple combination of master page changes and CSS.

Not that it is trivial, but as Kathy Hughes covered (extremely well I might add) in her session, it is very straight forward once you know how. Getting your head around the Content database and how pages are constructed with Page layouts, Content placeholders and web parts is a little confusing at first, but soon starts making sense.Themes are also supported, but I had to leave the session before we got to this part (a pity).

The customization tools are spread across SharePoint Designer, Visual Studio and also in browser changes.The session covered the basic steps of Design, Coding and then Cascading down through sites.

So, to repeat my earlier answer to Why SharePoint branding…Answer: Because we can, and we can do it reasonably easily now.

What an awesome end to the day. I’m already sold on the whole Silverlight concept, but this session was an eye opener. Joe Stegman impressed, with a slickly crafted presentation, perfectly delivered. No woffle or hype, just demo after demo of Silverlight goodness.Part of the attraction of Silverlight is how it opens up the programming of media and interaction via Visual Studio (admittedly mostly in v1.1 which ‘aint out for a while yet). But in 1.0 (due for RTM in a month or so) there is plenty to appreciate. The graphics rendering on this is incredibly smooth and fast. A demo with 9 separate video streams was pushing (only!) 50% CPU on his notebook.

Joe covered the various toolsets – this was the first time I’d seen Expression Blend demoed in a compelling way (it’s actually a really nice product), but the standout was Expression Media Encoder which was packed with features (it even has a command line extension for batching media conversions.

Why Silverlight?

Broad reach (his words) which means they are ultimately aiming for it to run on everything (but initially this is just Windows and Mac), including mobile devices

The rich media experience is easy to achieve

The tools are available very soon

I’d be looking at Silverlight very seriously for web sites wanting to deliver rich media. The learning curve is not that steep, and the results are incredible.

The old joke about WPF being the answer to a question that hasn’t been asked is still around I guess, and thus a session on WPF is treated by some with a little bit of skepticism. Although only a mini-session, Paul Stovell did a great job of explaining why WPF is now relevant. Actually I don’t really think his aim was to address relevance, but he did it none the less. With the release (finally) of tools that help build the XAML behind WPF applications, the space is becoming more and more compelling.

Paul went through the development of a calendar control in WPF and along the way offered an insight into the way of thinking through a control’s design (he’ll have details on his blog in the coming days no doubt).

I had to leave half way through his sessions sadly, but the few minutes I saw allowed me to answer the basic question:Why WPF?Answer: A newer, richer user experience; Tools are finally delivered; Graphics engine is highly performant and easy to harness.

This was a great mini-session, with the remarkable Nick Hodge covering the all-too-important science of LOLCODE.I’m with Nick on this, in believing it to be the single most important technology initiative in years.The benefits are countless, but include the long lost art of ensuring maintenance coders are amused long into the future, and also the ability to SMS in code updates. As noted by a guest-appearing CLR expert (who likely wants to remain anonymous :-), LOLCODE may well be the savour of the IT industry, as it stands to attract back a brand new generation of high school leavers into the Uni IT courses.

Developers (like me) often can’t comprehend the overhead of installing security tools across a large server count. Afterall, we are usually only dealing with a handful of servers. So how do the people looking after large numbers of servers (eg hundreds) cope?This is a difficult problem and a number of vendors are targetting applications at the problem. One particular area is ensuring all Exchange and SharePoint servers have their security products kept up to date.As Tim Smith explained, this is where ForeFront steps in. Acquired by Microsoft from Sybari, the Antigen product range has largely been re-branded as ForeFront.The product has a number of versions, but in general is a means of linking in servers to be updated automatically, no matter what security suite they run (eg Kaspersky, CA, Norman etc). Forefront does all the management of deployment out to the servers.

Business Activity Management (BAM) is an important area for growing businesses to embrace. IT is basically the act of observing key processes in a business and being able to proactively respond to issues.

In this session Mick Badran (local BizTalk guru and MVP) along with Rahul Garg (Microsoft Technical Specialist) took us through an introduction to using BizTalk to implement BAM.

The functionality is largely OotB (Out-of-the-Box) in BizTalk 2006 R2 and is easy to implement.

The need for proper BAM will be decided at each organisation, usually the larger ones, and will require analysts to first work out what needs to be observed. Then it is handed over to the developers to implement using BizTalk orchestration. The general result is a tracking portal that allows activity searches, reporting, queries and alerts (eg even a Vista gadget for displaying summary information).

Why BAM?

It is becoming more necessary in companies, especially as timeframes are continually squeezed

Companies are requiring real-time activity information

The cost of the technologies available are allowing it to be implemented cheaply

The cost of not implementing may be high for companies due to lost revenue, opportunities, etc

Rounding out a solid day of excellent sessions was Australia’s favourite son Andrew Coates (OK, so I might have hyped that a little bit).

Office Business Applications (OBA) will be getting increasing focus from Microsoft in the coming year and it is no wonder why.VSTO, now in its third version, allows developers to easily build functionality on top of the Office applications. With Visual Studio 2008 Pro we can be building rich, powerful apps right into Outlook, Word, Excel, etc. As a third version, it is a classic case of the product maturing, and offering significant value.

Why VSTO?Answer: Because Office is no longer a suite of applications, rather it is a platform.

Highlights included hearing them each give their view of what the hell Web 2.0 is. My favourite was Phil who summarised it along the lines of ‘it is a period in time when the technology, infrastructure, privacy concerns, thirst for interactivity and advertising have all come together’. As he went on to explain, some of the technology (eg AJAX) has been around for a while, but just needed the other factors to be there too. The whole social networking ‘thing’ would never have taken off if we still held the same concerns for privacy that we did 10 years ago.

I think he is right. Whilst we can point to styles of web site, and even the way we interact, there is definitely a mindset element that has made it take off.

These same success factors will also likely be problematic in the future, as IP, defamation and other legal implications catch up in the next 5 years.

At the TechEd Technology Showcase booth tonight I was blown away by a very cool technology called SoftGrid. Microsoft acquired this recently.

SoftGrid is a virtualisation technology allows applications (as opposed to operating systems) to be delivered to the desktop (ie they are never installed on the desktop – rather it is almost like they are ‘streamed’ to the desktop). They are delivered by a SoftGrid server.

Why SoftGrid? Because it allows multiple versions of products to be run side by side – the demo showed Excel 97 and Excel 2003 running side by side on the same desktop, and then three different Java applications (each requiring a different Java runtime) running side-by-side. Amazing.

Google bowling Maliciously trying to lower a sites rank by sending it links from the “bad neighborhood” – Kind of like yelling “Good luck with that infection!” to your buddy as you get off the school bus – there is some controversy as to if this works or is just an SEO urban myth.

Yes, I agree with TechCrunch that WebbAlert is pretty cool. Only two episodes so far, but well produced, fast paced, easily consumable (5 mins), interesting, and perhaps a even little quirky. I mean, who knew that there was a guy called Rupert Murdoch (I wonder where he’s from) trying to buy the WSJ?

I was going through a pile of papers and found my notes from CeBIT earlier this year. Yay! I thought I’d lost them.

Anyway, back in early May (yikes – was it that long ago?) I attended CeBIT to check out the latest and greatest in the technology stakes.

There were a few things that struck me about the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of exhibitor’s stands. So I compiled a list, with the aim of referring back to it should I ever want to set up a booth in future years.

Here’s my observations:

You need to stand out. Obvious yes, but mentioned up front because that is what most of the following points will build on.

Descriptive names are everywhere (you know, things like: Superior Data Solutions, Expert Managed Hosting, Integrated CRM Management, etc, etc). Whilst this might be helpful in some ways, for the most part it is very boring. Few people (with perhaps Internet Dashboard being the exception) can get away with it.

Instead you need to have a cool name. Something short and funky, and easy to remember.

And you must have really cool branding. Bright colours are part of it, but a really slick look is the most important. Standouts were google and eWay. Everyone was flocking to their stands.

In general most stands were ‘blah’, they need to be ‘hey you!’ and grab attention. It was sad to see so many booths being walked past simply because they were drab, had long boring names, or didn’t have even a dash of colour.

You must look different. For example, so many online hosted services companies looked the same.

You must be in the middle. Booths on the outer rims were like a ghost town – ideal for people who needed take a phone call (or catch up on sleep) due to them being so quiet.

I don’t have the cost schedule for the booths but I’m sure the extra cost of being in the centre of things would be worth it. Imagine if you’d managed to get the booth next to the google stand…

You need to have people form a line at your booth. Nothing generates interest better than a crowd (as nightclubs and buffet RSL restaurants know all too well :-). The campaigns that worked well that I noticed were: lining up to use a voucher to redeem a specially prized gizmo (eg IP telephony handset) or answering a quiz question to get a CD (anti-virus software with 6 months free updates, in this case).

You should make noise. But not annoying noise. Having widescreen TVs with interesting demos and the volume up was effective. Most stands however had demos but the volume muted. Perhaps there are some restrictions on volume that I’m not aware of?

You need to come up with a new gimmick. Coffee carts with baristas are old hat these days. A Juice bar would have been good, as would a company handing out bottles of water (with their branding of course), but I didn’t see either of these. You need to say, ‘give me your card, and we’ll give you a free gift’ (of value). I did see a popcorn machine at one stand which was generating a bit of a line.

You need useful flair. Everyone is sick of the stress balls, caps, even T shirts, demo CDs, etc. Instead you need to give something of value. One stand was giving out the new wallet flash USB sticks to select enquirers (not everyone). Nice.

Some stands had Xboxes and Playstations going, and these got some interest. Overall I suspect they weren’t a great draw card.

The days of scantily clothed ‘booth babes’ is almost gone (but not quite). One stand had a spa bath with two bikini clad girls. Heaps of people wandering past, but no one stopping. I actually think this worked against the company.

Instead, I noticed that attractive, professionally attired, immaculately groomed females were drawing in enquiries all the time. Even late in the day when booth after booth was occupied by just the company rep, those with the professional women were always occupied. This might sound obvious (or even sexist – it is), but it was very noticeable. And I should mention that the ladies were engaging about the products – they knew their stuff, they weren’t just eye candy. So forget the lame booth babe concept (from point 14). [And, I should mention that by far the majority of attendees were male.]

Present at one the theatres around the event. In each corner of the main hall there was a mini theatre, with huge screen and PA, for select companies to present. Aim for around lunch time, because everyone is looking for somewhere to sit and eat. Why not take advantage of that captive audience? But your talk needs to be interesting. I was surprised at how bad the two presentations I stopped for were. One presenter was boring, monotone and repeated himself. What the? They must have paid a fortune for that gig and then basically advertised why you should be running away from them screaming… The other presenter I saw was an arrogant know-it-all, who couldn’t stop patting himself and his company on the back. Yawn. You need to be interesting and add value. Don’t try to sell at these presentations.

Talk about the customer. I was surprised at how many stands were ‘us’ focused. All their brochures and demos were about how great their company was, how their software was the most innovative event of the year, etc. Who gives a toss? In the few seconds you have to attract attention, you need to either intrigue the person (ie with a cool logo, branding or giveaway) or, and this is the most likely, show them immediately that you can give them value. You can help. You can solve their problems. You can improve profits, etc, etc. And don’t use scare tactics (eg trying to generate fear about internet security attacks) – people are well aware of the problems; you just need to indicate that you can help.

Some other thoughts about the event:

As an aside, the toilets were appalling, too few, and inaccessible to wheel chair attendees in most cases. This is a criticism of the venue, not the event of course. But, call me crazy, one of these days a vendor is going to come along and set up a big line of ‘glammed up’ Portaloos, and be the most talked about company of the show…

Food was very expensive (eg a sandwich and drink set me back more than $10). Perhaps if an exhibitor did a deal with the caterers to offer some discount to attendees, that could be an option. Attendees would have to line up, hand over their business card, and in return be given a lunch discount voucher.

I have to say that one thing CeBIT has absolutely spot on is the registration process. It was very smooth. Nice work.

I’ve heard some people say that you should focus on getting the right contacts, as opposed to just heaps of unqualified contacts, at these events. This is of course true. However, the people who makes those comments sometimes use this as justification for not having a popular stand – instead, they say, focus on the few good leads you get. This seems bizarre to me – surely you need to be attractive and positioned well to get the qualified contacts too. Weeding out inappropriate prospects takes a few days of phone calls after an event – a small price to pay if it yields even a few extra good leads.

The food was good, the conversation was great, but then came dessert… Here’s what Adam had organized prior with the staff to deliver to me for dessert:

It’s a copy of Visual FoxPro version 5.0, and it now sits up on the shelf above my desk. It’s still got the plastic wrapping on it! And weren’t those the days – the box weighs a ton: Developer’s guide, programmer’s guide, language reference – I can still hear the trees crying 🙂